Running a project in disguise: Managing a family holiday across Japan

lorenaflorian0
5 hours ago
5 min read

At first glance, planning a family holiday doesn’t seem like the kind of challenge that requires formal project management. But as I discovered while organising a multi‑city adventure across Japan, the same principles that drive successful project delivery can transform a potentially chaotic first-time experience into a collaborative, and adaptive journey.

Our two‑week trip unfolded much like an Agile project: iterative, flexible, and reliant on continuous feedback to improve. And just like any good sprint review, it offered plenty of insights worth sharing.

Agile in action

Continuous Feedback: Daily stand‑ups (over convenience‑store coffee) helped us refine our itinerary based on what worked yesterday—and what didn’t.

Flexibility: Weather changes, transport delays, and spontaneous discoveries demanded quick pivots.

Underpinning it all were the core Agile values: people over process, collaboration over negotiation, and responding to change rather than following a rigid script.

Using agile to plan (and survive) a family holiday

Agile project management is built on delivering value through repeated cycles and improving quickly as new information emerges. And Japan delivered plenty of opportunities to test our adaptability:

Winds cancel Hakone Ropeway and Sightseeing Cruise? Pivot to the indoor art and rock museum.
My younger brother’s newfound obsession with an owl cafe? Re‑prioritise and join the fun.
Exhausted after Nara Park? Drop the temple visits and head for snacks.

This was all made possible through iterative planning and continuous feedback. Instead of planning everything upfront, we broke the trip into manageable “sprints”, focus blocks where we’d plan just enough to move forward without locking ourselves in.

Stand-downs in our hotel room at the end of each day helped my family refine our itinerary based on what worked that day — and what didn’t. As everyone’s first trip to Japan, there was constant feedback which helped us improve everyone’s experience on the trip continuously.

Exploring Additional Project Management Approaches

While Agile was the dominant approach, several other classic project management methods and techniques complemented the planning. Each offers strengths that aligned with different phases of the trip.

Waterfall: For Upfront, Predictable Activities

Some tasks followed a clear, sequential dependency chain: one step leads to the next, and reversing course later is costly or impossible. Waterfall worked well where scope is fixed and the outcomes are well understood.

Booking flights
Securing accommodation
Purchasing Shinkansen tickets
Submitting leave requests

*Mt Fuji on the Shinkansen from Tokyo to Kyoto*

RACI Matrix: Clarifying Roles (and Preventing Family Chaos)

Travel planning involves stakeholders with very different opinions and priorities. A RACI matrix could have helped clarify who was:

· Responsible for choosing accommodation

· Accountable for navigating transport

· Consulted on restaurant choices

· Informed about the itinerary

This would have avoided the all-too-common “I thought you were doing that” moments.

Critical Path Method (CPM): Managing Tight Itineraries

When moving between cities—Tokyo → Kyoto → Osaka, CPM approach ensured:

Activities didn’t overlap with mandatory travel windows
Buffer time was built around fixed rail departures
Time‑sensitive attractions were properly sequenced

Lessons Learned: Stakeholder Management (a.k.a. The Family)

If there’s one area where project management and family holidays overlap perfectly, it’s stakeholder management. Every family member is a stakeholder with different priorities, energy levels, expectations, and communication styles—and the success of the “project” depends heavily on how well these are understood and managed.

During our trip to Japan, I quickly learned that keeping everyone informed and invested wasn’t just a nice-to-have; it was critical to maintaining morale and avoiding “stakeholder escalation moments” (also known as grumpiness and confusion).

Communicate the Itinerary Early (Not the Night Before)

While Agile encourages flexibility, stakeholders still need visibility. Sharing the plan only a day in advance created unnecessary uncertainty:

· No time to mentally prepare

· Misaligned expectations

· A sense that decisions were being made for them

Providing the itinerary earlier and in an easy to understand format—even a screenshot of the Google Maps location as I learnt—would have improved buy‑in and reduced questions like “Where are we going again?” or “Why are we waking up at 7am?”

Tailor Communication Styles to the Audience

Different stakeholders absorb information differently:

My mum preferred it visually (as seeing familiar attractions from other’s travels got better buy-in from her)
Others wanted times and logistics (that’s ME!)
Some only care about when the next attraction that they enjoyed would be (my sister)

By providing clear, accessible information in a format everyone could grasp, we’d have supported smoother and reduced misalignment during the day.

Keep Stakeholders Engaged in Decision-Making

Even small opportunities for collaboration boosted the mood:

Voting on dinner options
Choosing between two afternoon activities
Allowing each person to nominate a “must-do” item for the trip

Just like in Agile delivery, co-creation drives ownership. When everyone had a hand in shaping the plan, there was more enthusiasm and less resistance when plans needed to pivot.

Regular Check-Ins Maintain Emotional Velocity

Quick “pulse checks” throughout the day helped us catch:

· Fatigue levels

· Hunger (a critical blocker!)

· Emerging preferences

This helped reduce the risk of stores of frustration building up because just like in Agile, small problems caught early stay small.

Transparency Builds Trust and Reduces Stress

Explaining the “why” behind decisions (e.g., choosing a particular train schedule or reserving a limited-entry attraction early) helped stakeholders understand the constraints and supported alignment. Transparency avoided misunderstandings and ensured the group felt included rather than managed.

Takeaway for Project Managers

In the end, our first time in Japan proved that project management isn’t just for offices, delivery rooms, or stand‑ups—it’s a superpower you can take on the Shinkansen. Whether we were negotiating snack-based scope creep, or managing a high‑stakes stakeholder meeting in front of a vending machine, the tools and techniques we use professionally showed their value in the wild.

Mixing Agile adaptability with a dash of Waterfall structure, adding a sprinkle of RACI role clarity, and keeping stakeholders informed (and fed!) kept the trip running smoothly and the morale high.

So the next time you’re planning a holiday, don’t be afraid to bring your PM toolkit along for the ride. It may just turn a stressful itinerary into a high‑performing, laughter-filled, delightfully optimised family adventure.

Because if project managers can deliver major programs…surely we can handle a day in Tokyo with jet‑lagged stakeholders and competing priorities.

Tokyo DisneySea

Want to take the stress out of your projects – whether at work or on the road? At PMLogic, we help teams navigate complex programs, align stakeholders, and deliver results smoothly.